BioDieselNow - Renewable biodiesel fuel

I currently use my B100 down to 30F without blending. This is with soy based biodiesel from waste sources. I recently had this fuel tested for cold flow and turned out was just around 28F. Living in Iowa when temps fall bellow freezing I have fuel blended ahead of time 50%B100/ 50% Petro this takes me to about 15F with no problems. If I use a winter blended petro 60/40 with B100 this will generaly take me to around 0F. I have yet to have any problems with gelling.Note I perform all my blending at higher temps.hope this helps

You must have some fairly pure WVO.  My WVO (mostly soy, some canola) titrates very low, however when the temperature overnight fell to freezing my B100 immediately plugged my prefilter with a greasy fallout (or "wax" as some call it).  Maybe because of some traces of animal fats.  Be careful.

Past 2 days in a row the nightly low as been 22 F and the high below 30 F.  I'm running 66% Virgin Soy Biodiesel and 33% Kerosene with about 8 ounces of Power Service white bottle mixed in.  Cars sit out all night, and have started up both mornings with no difficulty and pretty much no hesitation. 

Next batch of biodiesel I get I'll be mixing in Power Service AE Biodiesel Anti-Gel at .2% concentration and a .8% concentration of PS white bottle.  I'll still mix in Kerosene down to about a B70 blend, though, to be safe.  That should carry me to 5 F no problem I think.  Last winter we had close to 0 F temps, but I was running B50-B60 with the afore-mentioned additives.

hey old300d any damage to the engine due to this fuel being run when this occurs

I have been running 2% canola bd blend since the weather turned cold up here in Northen Alberta.

I decided to take a walk on the wildside and try out a higher blend and ended up witha 20% by accident. I put my usual 2% bd in the tank and just plain forgot to fuel up. So once my fuel lines thawed out (after my buddy pushed my truck into my garage of course) I fueld up and did the math of tank capacity and what I put in the tank. Well, I quickly figured out that along with the 2% bd, I had enough fuel in the tank to make a 20% blend. At -30 (-22F) 20% doesn't work as I had hoped ha,ha.

 So now I'm back to the 2% blend and our temps are hovering around the -15C to -25C (5F to -5 F) and as long as I'm plugged in (block heater only) all has been working fine.

 Question though, I put a bottle of bd outside last night @ -18C (-1F ish) The bd solidified (sort of) to the consistancy of very thin vaseline or partially hardened bacon fat (sorry fellas, I'm not being very scientifice here). Within 10 minutes over 1/2 of the bottle was back in a liquid state and after 15 minutes  the entire bottle was back to a flowing constistancy.

Anyof you fellows have the same results? 

 Hello,

I have been making biodiesel now for about 2 years and have run it 100% in my ford tractor down to about 20 degrees above zero. I have had good luck however the tractor sits in a un heated shed,and that may help some as far as starting on the cold  mornings. And right up through most of December here in northern Michigan I run 50/ 50 blend with no problems at all. I also run biodiesel in a Dodge 1 ,ton 4+4 and when it gets cold here I usually run 20 to 25% biodiesel/ dino diesel blend as well. I will be installing a heated tank and lines hopefully this summer so I can start on reg. diesel warm up the tank and then switch over to 100% biodiesel  when the tank is up to around 70 degrees. Then when I shut down the truck, switch over to dino,diesel so the lines are cleared of any biodiesel,and    shut off the truck .  Ready for the next day.  Duff Streeter

22 deg F this morining and running B100 homebrew from WVO in my Dodge Cummins with no problem.   Also have a jar of B100 outside which is still clear.

 I run all my diesels on B100 but my biodiesel is super clean filtered to 1 micron . I wash it a lot and dry it a lot and that seems to be the key . We don't get very cold but did hit -10C for a week or so . This is my first year using B100 all winter but also my first year using the 1 micron sock or tube filter .

After I am finished making my biodiesel I heat it to 70C then circulate it through the 1 micron filter for about 6 hours . I also have air lines in the biodiesel to help dry it . 

Terry 

 Those are some great results, folks! I've never tested b100 that low in the car. I did used to keep a sample in a small water bottle in my car, and that turned to mush a few times, but I've never run that high a blend in the winter.

I keep a couple sample vials in my car and see a commercially made B100 go solid at 25F. I would not feel comfortable running untreated close to freezing temperatures. On the bright side, in Ohio I've never had a fuel problem running B20 all winter.  

IME, the single most important factor for cold weather runnning is what kind of bio-oil your bio-d comes from.  I will not use bio-d based on bio-oils with high cloud points and point points, like palm oil for instance, in the winter.  Period. 

In extreme winter conditions, nothing beats a garage (even an unheated one) and an engine block heater.

In less extreme weather, either the garage or the engine block heater will suffice.

In the vast majority of NE winter weather, I can run good quality B50 - B100 with no more "TLC" than I would use if running "D100" dino-diesel.

I've run B50+ in weather that was cold enough to be a problem for dino-diesel unless precautions were used.  Using similar amounts of care with bio-diesel resulted in a completely reliable bio-diesel powered vehicle.

Hey Terry im Tetaan from South-Africa,getting cold down here and my diesels going in to a gel at 

15C im using a lot of palm oil dow,what kind of oil u using? If i mai ask how meany times are u washing ur diesel and to what temp are u drying it? Kind regards Tetaan Henning KZN Biodiesel

sunstar:

hey old300d any damage to the engine due to this fuel being run when this occurs

I was away from this site this winter, sorry for the late response.  This is what happened in my garage with the unblended fuel.  It took a hot stove to restore my bag filters.  Fortunately I've not had the opportunity to have my fuel solidify in the tank, but I suspect it would take many many many filters to filter all the goo from the tank once it turns liquid again.  This will not happen with winterized biodiesel, but I'm not that sophisticated yet.  I just blend my fuel with diesel #2 in a high enough percentage to survive the coldest temperatures.  There were times I went to B20, but I'm back to B80 now.

Hello THITERINTINTON,

How the heck did you pull THAT off????

As I posted a few days ago, I diluded to about B40+ and my bd still gelled. So I wondered if # 141 biotreat would help. I talked to a guy there today and he told me that this product was mostly for corrosion protection. But said if I use # 137 with a B20 blend i should be OK down to single digits?

I like your trick better, though. Would you share?

Thomas

Hi Thomas;  Sorry for this being all one paragraph.  I typed it as several paragraphs but for some reason it wont post that way.   The claim of Biotreat that their #137 will allow you to use B20 down to single digits doesn’t impress me at all since I have used my homebrew B100 with no additives down to 12F.  (But, I was called a liar when I reported this, so disregard my claim if you wish.)  B20 should be able to easily get to single digits with no special additives, in my opinion. Hope you don’t mind a rather long response, but I have seen some different ideas on how the process I use should be done, so I will go into detail on what I actually do.  However, my success could be the result of a number of things.  One thing being that it seems some engines are more sensitive than others to cold B100.  Maybe mine isn't as sensitive as some.   First of all, my transesterfication process is fairly normal, but for those that want to know, this is it:  My feedstock is wvo from several sources and I have no idea what type of oil they all use.  I do reject any really bad oil, and have noticed that none of it turns completely solid in the collection barrels, even in winter.  (It gets thick, but not solid like bacon grease).  Winter here in coastal N/W Washington State is normally below freezing but rarely below 15F.  Most of my wvo titrates at less than 2.5 with NaOH.  I do a standard 1 step process with NaOH using a base of 6 grams/liter plus titration amount, and 20% methanol.  Process time is 1.5 hours at 140F after methanol/NaOH is added, in a vented Appleseed processor with a vertical 3’ long pipe out of the vent to condense escaping methanol vapors back into the processor.  Batches are settled, byproduct removed (and saved for the pre-treatment process of later batches, read on as this is the key.), and the fuel is washed thoroughly.  My wash may be a little different, but this probably doesn’t have a major effect on cold weather use.  I use a continuous mist wash with hot water and a bubbler running in the fuel, not in the wash water.  I wash until the wash water coming out the drain is almost clear.  Drying is done by bubble drying and is continued until the fuel is crystal clear at room temp, absolutely no cloudiness at all.  I keep the fuel from room temp up to about 90F while bubble drying.  While it’s drying, it is also being pumped through a 10 micron “Whole House” type filter.  Final filtering is through a 2 micron Racor filter as it’s pumped into the vehicle tank.  With few exceptions, the fuel passes the 3/27 test with no dropout.   The thing I do that is different to get better cold weather performance is a glycerin pre-treatment process for the wvo that has been described on the forums, but seems to be rarely used.  It doesn’t really have an official name yet.  Girl Mark recently started a thread to get suggestions for a name, and I think she has been trying to get some actual scientific data as to why it works.  When done properly, this seems to lower the freeze point of the fuel produced from the pre-treated wvo and also eliminates the fallout of the thick white liquid that settles in the bottom of your fuel tank after the fuel has frozen and then thawed out again (some have named this liquid the “Dreaded White Stuff”, and this is probably what Old300D is referring to in his post on this thread.)  This white liquid will clog your filter in a matter of minutes.  I have been told that the white liquid is probably made up of “high freezing point esters” that can freeze at temps as high as 50F, and not thaw out unless heated to around 150F.  Apparently the pre-treatment I use removes these esters from the wvo before transesterfication so that they are not in the final product.  One drawback it that the high freezing point esters also have more energy, so the lack of them in my fuel reduces power and fuel mileage slightly.  Also, you will not be able to use 100% of the wvo you bring home for BD production, because part of it will be discarded as a byproduct of this pre-treatment process.  But it is better to eliminate this part of the wvo now, rather than pay for the chemicals to process it into BD, then not be able to use it is cold weather.  I feel the benefit of being able to run B100 in lower temps outweighs these drawbacks.   To pre-treat the wvo I put 5 gallons of liquid glycerin byproduct (complete with all the left over methanol and NaOH) into a 55 gallon drum and add 50 gallons of wvo, gently stirring to mix in the glycerin byproduct thoroughly.  Now I let it sit for several days at room temperature.  Some people have reported doing this pre-treatment by letting it sit for only a couple of hours, but I have found that has very little effect for me.  It takes at least two or three days, sometimes more, depending on how bad the oil is.  Different size tanks may require different settling times, I don’t know and never tried.  When the wvo is ready, there will be two distinct layers.  The top layer will be nice, clean, transparent, almost new looking wvo (just with a darker color than new oil).  The bottom layer (Usually 25% to 30% of the total) will be a thick cream to brown colored liquid that does not like to recombine with the wvo on top.  I process the top layer of nice oil into fuel and discard the bottom layer.    Some folks have reported that this process lowers their titration numbers as well.  I haven’t found any significant difference.  But, I think with higher titrating oil, it may have more effect on this.  I have noticed that this seems to remove water, without having to use energy to heat the wvo.  I’ve picked up a couple of pretty wet batches, and after pre-treating with glycerin, the layer of usable wvo did not crackle or boil when heated in a pot to well over 212F.  I assume that the water was contained in the bottom layer.  I once tried processing the bottom layer into fuel, but just got a dirty mess of something unidentifiable for my efforts.   As an example of the difference this makes in the final product, I processed wvo (from the same lot) that had not been pretreated, and some that had been pretreated.  Both samples were processed into fuel the same way I described above.  The fuel from the wvo that had not been pretreated froze solid at about 30F.  When thawed, the “dreaded white stuff” separated out to the bottom of the test tube, amounting to about 8% to 10% of the total volume.   The fuel made from the pretreated wvo froze solid at around 20F, took noticeably less time to thaw out, and did not show any dreaded white stuff at the bottom of the test tube after thawing.  (Remember, the fuel in your vehicle tank will not get as cold as the ambient temp unless it sits for a really long time, so an overnight cold snap of less than 20F will not necessarily lower your fuel temp in the tank to 20F.)  In my opinion the dreaded white stuff is a bigger hazard than the higher freeze point.  When your fuel tank freezes, it can be thawed out again and everything should be fine (assuming you have a way to thaw it out).  But when you get this white stuff separated out (the process which causes this separation is called “cold filtering” and can even occur at temps higher than the freezing point of your fuel) you will have several gallons of it in the bottom of your fuel tank right where the fuel pickup is.  It gets sucked straight into your fuel filter and plugs it within a few minutes of driving.  Changing the filter might get you another 2 or 3 miles before the new filter plugs as well.  All you can do is remove the fuel from the tank somehow, clean out the fuel system, and start over.  I think many people who have reported problems with gelled B100, may actually be having problems related to the dreaded white stuff more so than with the fuel actually being gelled.  I say this because many of them talk about finding the white stuff in their fuel filter bowls after a cold weather problem.  The glycerin pre-treatment, if done properly, prevents dreaded white stuff from forming as well as lowering the freeze point.  So, even if your fuel does freeze, you will have better luck of everything being fine again as soon as you get it thawed out.  It’s worked for me for 2 winters now!   

 

Thanks Thitherintinton, (did I spell that correctly, may I call you Bob?).

Very elaborate. As I posted just earlier, I will  soon become a grease nut as well, and will therefore try to apply your great input. I'll keep you posted.

Thomas

Bob is fine.

But Thitherintinton is so much more fun to use in restaraunts when they want to take your name as you walk in  Just be aware, they will assume you are mesing with them every time and try to trip you up by asking you to spell it.  So practice until you can rattle it off like you've been doing it all your life.  When they hear you spell it faster than they can write it down, they may not question you any further.  Now the real fun begins when your table is ready, and a hostess trys to pronounce it when calling you.  Of course, you look at her like she is the only one in the world that ever has trouble figuring out how to pronounce your name!

It helps to have an unusual alternate name ready as well, because many of the smarter ones will ask for your last name when they know they are in trouble with Thitherintinton.  A good one is "Asswipe", pronounced oz-WEEP-ay.  Of course, they will ask you to spell that as well, then have much trouble figuring out how to pronounce it when they try to call you.

Haven't really done this since my college days, but it was fun back then! 

I hope I haven't killed this thread by going so very, very far off topic!

It seems that most, if not all, of the posters in this thread are used to soy biodiesel.   Unwinterized pure Soy Methyl Ester has cold filter plug point of 12 Celsius or about 53.6 Fahrenheit.  If one tries Coconut Methyl Ester which is purified to automotive use standards it is an ideal early winter biodiesel since it has a lower unwinterized or natural CFPP of -8 Celsius or 17.6 Fahrenheit.  CME is not, however, easily available in the U.S. although it has been tested extensively by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  Their findings? CME beats all other biodiesels in practically all technical specifications like oxidation stability, cetane number and saturation, amongst others.  

Glover;

I think you need to go back and read a little closer.  Or are you just here to try to sell something?  Do you sell coconut oil perhaps?

Most of us homebrewers use WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) as our feedstock.  It comes mainly from restraunt deep fryers and could contain many different types of oil.  But did you really mean to say that coconut based biosiesel will work down to 17 deg F, and soy based biosiesel will plug filters at 53 Deg F.  I would think it would be the other way around!